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Mrs. Heard's Italian Spaghetti

A casserole of spaghetti, beef, tomatoes, and cheese baked until the cheese melts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,076 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Mrs. Heard's Italian Spaghetti

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cook the beef until very tender, seasoning with salt, black pepper, green pepper, onion, and garlic.

  2. Once the beef is tender, add the tomatoes and cook for about 15 minutes.

Cook the spaghetti

  1. In another pot, cook the spaghetti until tender.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish or casserole, layer the cooked meat and tomatoes, followed by a layer of spaghetti, and top with grated cheese.

  2. Place in the oven until the cheese is melted.

  3. Serve in the casserole.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meaty body and savory flavor of the sauce.
Tomatoes
Supply moisture and acidity that build the sauce around the beef.
Spaghetti
Forms the starchy base layer that holds the sauce together in the casserole.
Grated cheese
Melts over the top to add richness and a golden, savory crust.
Green pepper
Adds fresh, slightly bitter vegetable flavor to the cooked meat.

The step that matters

Cook the beef until very tender. Beef needs enough time for its connective tissue to break down; if it stays tough, the final casserole will be chewy. Seasoning early also lets salt penetrate the meat.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tomato, cheese, pepper):

  1. Oreganofits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Basilfits about as well
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, cheese, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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